An International Meeting of the American Accounting Association 2005 Annual Meeting August 7–10, 2005 San Francisco, California Come to the City by the Bay!

Effective Learning Strategies Forum
Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Session 13
Motivating Students in Introductory Accounting through Formal Feedback Activities Generated by WebCT

Presenters:
Samir Trabelsi, Brock University
Sandra Felton, Brock University

Description:
We discuss utilizing formal feedback activities generated through an online course management system (WebCT) to motivate students in introductory accounting. WebCT allows students to access course material as often as they deem necessary and provides a discussion forum to encourage critical thinking and a group dynamic. Additionally, it enables instructors to track student effort by indicating content page hit and timing histories on an individual or class basis.

We focus on how the instructor can use statistics on student "hits" to boost overall class effort and motivate individual students by:

1. "Flagging" work deficiencies and other problems early on;
2. Alerting students about available course materials that are not being used to full advantage;
3. Making students aware that the instructor is monitoring their individual efforts;
4. Providing a benchmark that enables students to compare their efforts with their classmates;
5. Showing the correlation between effort (use of WebCT material) and grades achieved on quizzes and midterms;
6. Providing better feedback when counseling individual students who are experiencing difficulty.

This strategy is particularly effective in an introductory course where greater instructor intervention is required to increase student motivation. It also makes WebCT a more integral part of the educational experience.

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